Rebirth of the Wild Age

When Song Weiyang left the United States, Google had already announced the auction listing.

That battle, that reaction, was like throwing a boulder into a latrine. The old shareholders and underwriters standing on the edge of the latrine, their trousers were splashed with feces and urine in an instant, and they were disgusted by Google from soul to body.

Song Weiyang is also an old shareholder, but strictly speaking, he is a founding shareholder and a beneficiary just like Larry and Sergey.

Shareholders, including Sequoia Capital, do not want to continue to increase their holdings during the IPO stage, because they have no confidence in the auction listing. The fact is not far from the fact that due to the negative voice of Wall Street, Google's issue price is at least 40 US dollars lower than expected. And even if it was issued at a low price, it only rose by 18% on the opening day. This increase is completely inconsistent with Google's excellent performance.

The situation at that time was so miserable that no investment institution was willing to participate in the auction. Google has to raise money to cover the bottom line, otherwise the new IPO shares will go unsold, and the company's employees will also eat a quarter (all early employees who have received equity incentives can be purchased at ultra-low prices during the auction. These employee shareholders At least 500 people or more).

Before leaving the United States, Song Weiyang gave Larry and Sergey a reassurance: "If no one responds to Google's IPO auction, then I will pay 50 million US dollars to support it!"

Larry and Sergey were very moved, and they both said that Song Weiyang was the most trustworthy friend and partner, at least that's what they said.

waiting room.

Song Weiyang was reading with his legs crossed, when he suddenly mused and reminded in a low voice, "Boss, Huawei's President Ren is over there!"

Song Weiyang looked up and saw Mr. Ren and two middle-aged men sitting in a corner without saying a word.

"Mr. Ren, you've come to America too." Song Weiyang walked over with a smile.

"Boss Song?" Mr. Ren looked a little surprised, stood up and shook hands and said, "Long time no see, please sit down!"

Song Weiyang sat down and said, "Come to the United States to negotiate?"

Mr. Ren nodded and said: "Well, I finally confirmed it, but the negotiation still broke down."

Song Weiyang smiled and said, "It's good if the negotiation breaks down. Why sell Huawei if it's going well?"

"Maybe." Mr. Ren smiled wryly.

Since Song Weiyang invested to become a shareholder of Huawei a few years ago, he was informed of this negotiation as early as New Year's Day. The content is: Huawei will be sold to Motorola in a package for a price of 7.5 billion US dollars.

You heard me right. At the end of 2003, Mr. Ren wanted to sell Huawei as a whole.

Negotiations have been going on for several months, the intent contracts have been signed, and the relevant procedures have been completed. In order to celebrate, the negotiating teams of the two sides also bought flowered clothes and put them on, and ran and played table tennis on the beach. As a result, at this time, Motorola's new chairman took office and directly vetoed the acquisition that had already signed a contract, preferring to pay huge liquidated damages rather than buy Huawei.

As for why Mr. Ren wants to sell Huawei, the reason is very simple, internal and external difficulties!

The root cause of everything is the cold winter of the Internet. Not only the global Internet industry is in decline, but also telecommunications-related industries are in distress. In 2002, Huawei's sales experienced negative growth for the first time, and Mr. Ren chose to expand against the trend. He allocated too much money to invest in research and development, and opened a large number of branches overseas, hoping to seize the market by taking advantage of the cold winter of the Internet.

At a time when funds are seriously tight, Huawei simply can't afford wages, so it can only continue to fool employees into exchanging their salaries for stocks. This caused a strong backlash from many employees, because the market situation made them panic, they had no hope at all, and they were even more afraid that all their previous stocks would be lost, so a large number of employees chose to resign and cash in their equity.

After resigning, many employees joined the company of the traitor Li Yinan, bringing technology and resources to compete with their old boss Huawei for the market.

The house leak coincided with the continuous night rain, and Zheng Baoyong, Mr. Ren's old partner, was diagnosed with brain cancer at this time. And Cisco also jumped out to sue Huawei for infringement. Many European and American customers stopped cooperating with Huawei. It took nine months for the lawsuit to reach an out-of-court settlement.

"Huawei is really out of money?" Song Weiyang asked.

Mr. Ren said with a weary face: "There is money. Cut some R\u0026D projects and lay off some overseas institutions. The money saved can fully support it."

Song Weiyang nodded and said, "It's time to scale back the strategy. Alibaba did the same thing two years ago, and it's not coming back now. By the way, since Huawei is so short of money, why doesn't it learn from ZTE to make mobile phones and PHS?"

"Huawei also makes mobile phones, of course. After a while, Huawei's mobile phones will be launched, just in time for the worst market environment." Mr. Ren said with a wry smile. He didn't want to make a mobile phone at first, and said that whoever made a mobile phone would be fired, but he still couldn't escape the law of true fragrance.

"It's just starting to make mobile phones now, so you are really unlucky." Song Weiyang couldn't help teasing.

Mr. Ren said: "Who says it's not? When people are unlucky, even drinking water can get stuffed between their teeth."

Last year, the prosperity of domestic mobile phones reached its peak, and now it has begun to decline, and the vicious competition has reached an unimaginable level. Take the panda mobile phone as an example. In the first two quarters of this year, the sales volume was more than 900 million yuan, but the net profit was only a pitiful 1.5 million yuan. After selling nearly 1 billion yuan of mobile phones, they only earned 1.5 million yuan. Domestic manufacturers have turned mobile phones into Chinese cabbage!

The reason is that more and more mobile phones are made, and domestic brands can only continue to cut prices and promote sales as long as they don’t lose money. Even if they lose money, they have to sell, because the loss of hastily stopping production is even greater!

As for domestic mobile phone manufacturers, since I sell them at the price of cabbage, don't ask my products to have the quality of black truffles. All kinds of cutting corners, all kinds of lowering standards, and even perfunctory quality inspections have caused domestic mobile phones to become more and more garbage, and the market reputation has been ruined by these people.

The Shenzhou mobile phones, which have been strictly controlling the quality, are all negatively affected by domestic word-of-mouth. This situation often occurs at the sales counter. Goods, it’s too rubbish, there will definitely be problems after using it for two or three months!”

Compared with the self-defeating domestic mobile phones, Motorola and Nokia continue to launch new products and develop new functions. The price of its old models has also been reduced, even to the point where it is almost the same as that of domestic mobile phones. Consumers naturally choose foreign old mobile phones with good quality and cheapness.

Judging from the sales situation in the first quarter of this year, the sales of Shenzhou mobile phones are increasing, but the net profit and market share are seriously declining.

In the case of severe financial difficulties, Huawei spent more than half a year on research and development, and it was about to launch a Huawei mobile phone, but encountered such a nonsense market environment.

Song Weiyang asked: "Huawei will launch a 3G mobile phone soon, right?"

Mr. Ren hesitated for a moment, nodded and said, "Well, it's a 3G mobile phone. Originally, I planned to develop both domestic and foreign markets. Judging from the current situation, Huawei mobile phones can only focus on foreign markets. China is also developing 3G mobile phone technology, right?"

"Yes, it's been under development since last year, but I'm afraid it won't be put into commercial use. It's a kind of technology accumulation." Song Weiyang nodded.

Although the domestic mobile phone brands are generally rubbish, there are still a few that are serious about technology, among which Shenzhou, ZTE and tcl are the representatives. The quality of ZTE and tcl mobile phones was not good at the beginning. That was because the foundries made j8 blindly. Last year, tcl even built its own mobile phone production line. Unfortunately, the market environment changed just after it was put into production.

As for the research and development of 3G mobile phones, there are probably these companies currently doing it: Shenzhou, Huawei, ZTE, Datang, Lenovo, Amoi, Hisense and South Hi-Tech.

Only Huawei can really put it into commercial use in a short period of time.

Since 2004, Huawei has been selling mobile phones. The reason why it is not well-known is because it mainly sells customized phones. Operators who have launched 3G services around the world are all potential customers of Huawei. Most mobile phones are directly marked with the operator's trademark. You can only see the Huawei logo by removing the battery board.

"Why is China's 3G mobile phone not going to be put into commercial use?" Mr. Ren asked very curiously.

Song Weiyang didn't hide anything, and said with a smile, "Because I'm not optimistic about the 3G market and want to jump directly to the 4G era."

Mr. Ren said: "It's a strange idea."

Song Weiyang smiled and said nothing. Although he didn't make mobile phones in his previous life, he knew the market situation of 3G mobile phones very well. Song Weiyang has a friend who used to act as an agent for 3G mobile phones in Hong Kong City, and lost a lot of money. When he returned to the mainland for a drink, he complained, "I might as well donate the money lost from selling mobile phones to the casinos on the island of Australia!"

Well, this friend of Song Weiyang was miserably cheated by Huawei at that time.

In order to capture the 3G market in Hong Kong City, Huawei mobile phones not only invested in helping operators build networks, but also sent a large number of mobile phones to Hong Kong Island citizens for trial use. It is said to be a trial, but it is actually a mobile phone and a free phone bill. Citizens can make 3G calls without paying a penny. With such a good thing, the 3G mobile phone brand represented by Song Weiyang's friend had no sales at that time.

However, Huawei's 3g mobile phones are still suffering miserably. It should be said that all 3g mobile phone manufacturers are miserable.

The production of mobile phones in China requires a license, but except for the first batch of mobile phone licenses, which are very strict, the subsequent licenses can be obtained in a curve. The most direct way is to spend money. At that time, many domestic manufacturers thought that 3G was promising, so they spent huge sums of money to buy 3G mobile phone licenses. As a result, they all lost their pants.

It wasn't until Jobs led the smartphone revolution and the model matured that the 3G business became profitable, and 3G mobile phones began to sell well.

During this period, Huawei invested up to 5 billion a year in the research and development of 3G technology, but there was almost no market return.

Song Weiyang suddenly thought: "Mr. Ren, how about we merge the chip labs of China and Huawei to form a chip design company together?"

Mr. Ren felt a little interesting, and asked, "How do you do it?"

Song Weiyang said: "The patents previously obtained by both parties belong to each other. If the other party wants to use it, it must pay the patent fee according to the market price. As for the value of the laboratories of both parties, let professionals calculate when merging. Huawei's chip laboratory will definitely More valuable, Shenzhou Technology can take out some more cash. The chip company that was separated and merged is an independent operation state. If continuous investment is required for research and development, Huawei and Shenzhou will continue to inject capital according to the proportion of their shareholding. In this way, it can avoid Each other's repeated investment in research and development can achieve technical interoperability."

"How to avoid business differences and competition?" Mr. Ren asked.

Song Weiyang said with a smile: "The chip company operates independently, and it is treated as a laboratory jointly invested by us, and everything is implemented according to market rules. As for the shares, half of the family, no one takes advantage of the other. Moreover, Shenzhou Technology guarantees that it will not Do basic telecommunications products, and only civilian products in the future.”

Mr. Ren was a little embarrassed and said, "I'll go back and have a meeting to discuss it."

Song Weiyang is not in a hurry, because the research and development of 3G only invests money and has no income, Huawei has tried to sell HiSilicon many times, and even packaged and sold the mobile phone business. In the end, it was not because Mr. Ren was far-sighted, but because he couldn't find a buyer, and no one was willing to take over the money-losing product. Huawei could only hold on until the 4G era.

Song Weiyang wanted to merge the chip departments of Huawei and China for a very simple reason. He took a fancy to Huawei's top technical talents.